Quirk of Fate, Part 4: The Master Planner's Menace
by The Master Planner
Summary: Mary Jane Watson, the Amazing Spider-Woman, must fight her way through the henchmen of the mysterious Master Planner to retrieve a rare medicine as the life of her aunt Anna hangs in the balance. Will she succeed in her desperate quest?
1. Map of the Problematique

Attention, Loyal Minions! This is the Master Planner, the Writer Formerly Known as the Trickster, speaking from her secret underwater lair! Your mission, if you choose to accept it: To read this new literary masterpiece, and then review! Start: now!

Quirk of Fate, Part 4: Menace of the Master Planner

Mary Jane Watson, the Amazing Spider-Woman, must win the fight of her career to preserve her already shaky reputation and stop the plans of the mysterious "Master Planner", as the life of her beloved Aunt Anna hangs in the balance...

The Standard Disclaimer: All characters involved belong to Marvel, unless I note otherwise. Any quotes I may use belong strictly to their authors!

Dramatis Personae: Mary Jane Watson, Ned Leeds, Anna Watson, Flash Thompson, Elizabeth Allan, J. Jonah Jameson, Dr. Carolyn Trainer, Angelina Brancale, Benjamin Reilly, Charlotte Witter, Jessica Drew

Previously: Shortly after her harrowing fight with the Green Goblin, Mary Jane Watson, the Amazing Spider-Woman, is presented with a living suit of armor by her new boyfriend, Johnny Storm. Mary Jane is thrilled with the new suit's abilities, but increasingly finds that the suit has a life of its own, and is slowly altering her personality. The Shadow Spider's superhero career is further complicated by the return of Doctor Octopus, who taught her the meaning of responsibility by murdering her beloved Peter Parker. While under the malevolent influence of the symbiote, Shadow Spider quickly beats Doc Ock into submission, concluding their battle by snapping his neck. Horrified at what she had done, Mary Jane enlists Johnny's help to rid herself of the symbiote. She succeeds...but not before the symbiote finds a new host in her classmate Gwendolyn Stacy, whose police captain father had been killed as a bystander in one of the Web Spinner's battles. Gwen's desire for revenge combines with the inherent evil of the symbiote to birth the villainous Venom, whom Spider-Woman could only defeat with the help of others...And now begin!

Chapter 1: Map of the Problematique

"_Fear and panic in the air_

_I want to be free_

_From desolation and despair_

_And I feel like everything I saw_

_Has been swept away_

_Well I refuse to let you go!_

_I can't get it right, get it right_

_Since I met you..."_

Muse, "Map of the Problematique"

_early afternoon, baxter building_

For _her_, things were finally starting to grind down to normal. It had been a thrilling summer to be sure; _she_ had spent it not sunbathing on the beach like so many other girls her age, but on the spacecraft of her superhero team, the Fantastic Four, battling shape-shifting aliens and Annihilus, the monster king of a modern-day land of nightmares, and befriended the royal family of a forgotten offshoot of humanity, long exiled to their city on the moon. _She_ had spent Spring Break not in Cancun but in Latveria, fighting their deadly monarch and his designs for world domination.

But _her_ adventures carried forebodings as well as delights; the boyfriend who had advocated for _her_ membership on the team seemed distant, almost like he was..._tired_ of her. Moreover, the rulers of that unknown lunar kingdom, the silent King Black Bolt and his Queen Medusa, had decided that their race should begin to establish diplomatic relations with our world; and like so many other such arrangements from antiquity, this pact of friendship was to be sealed with a marriage—specifically, to _her_ boyfriend, Johnny, to their daughter, the Princess Crystalia. And Johnny seemed a little _too_ amenable to the idea. _She_ had tried to plead her case to his sister, Sue, and her husband, team leader Reed...

"Jonathan Storm is _my_ boyfriend!" she cried. "You can't just marry him off to this—this alien!"

"You don't understand, Mary Jane," Sue had told her. "Reed has sighted the Herald on the outskirts of the galaxy. We desperately need this alliance with the Inhumans. Our common interests demands that we take their offer."

"But why? Why does it have to be this way? What about _my_ interests?"

"Mary Jane, our role is to protect the planet from cosmic threats. You have to be unselfish—"

"For _once_," Ben Grimm, sometimes called the Thing, chimed in.

"Ben, please," Sue said, turning back to _her_. "Turning this down could mean all-out war between Earth and the Inhumans. We can't risk it. Besides, kingdoms have always established alliances through marriage."

"Yeah," _she_ shouted, "when people lived in castles! This is the twenty-first century! For God's sakes, they still have slavery up there!"

Sue's voice grew quiet. "No one has the right to disparage another's culture. Their culture isn't worse or better than ours, just—different. Inhuman."

Then _she_ had thrown down the gauntlet. "If Johnny marries this Princess Crystalia, I'm quitting the team!"

_She_ turned back to stalk off to her room in the Baxter Building, and stopped in the hallway, peering into a small room. Johnny, _her boyfriend_, goddamn it, was exchanging rings with this Crystalia while his brother-in-law, Reed Richards, shook hands with her parents. She heard the voice of the queen. "And the contracts for the betrothal of the Princess Royale Crystalia to Jonathan Storm—"

_She_ looked at this interloper, this so-called princess, and hated her. The Princess Royale Crystalia was slender, pale of skin and fair of hair, and almost sparkled in the night like a star, an utter contrast to _her_, with her fiery red hair and the muscles and physique one could only expect from a girl with the proportionate strength of a spider. So there was nothing left to do but silently stalk to her room, and pack her bags. She angrily threw a suitcase on the bed, nearly ripped it in her haste to open it, and started pulling out clothes with slender strings of spiderweb. Her flurry of activity was paused at the sound of Johnny's voice behind her. "Aw, come on. You don't have to be like that."

"Well _how_ else should I be, _pray tell_?" Mary Jane asked him through gritted teeth, continuing to fold a spider-suit.

"I'm only doing this because Reed and Sue told me that if I don't go through with it, the Inhumans will make war on us. I don't really _love_ her, you know."

"You sure have a funny way of showing it." She refused to look up from the jeans she was folding. "For God's sakes, you could have stood up to them for once. You could have said _You know what, have Ben marry the princess, I'm attached._"

"Uh...Ben _has_ a girlfriend. You know...Alicia? Short blind blonde? Comes around sometimes?"

"Oh, so getting a relationship broken for interplanetary politics is only for the newbie to endure."

"Look, if this is about the whole symbiote deal..." Johnny seemed nervous for even mentioning it. Truth was, the idea of Mary Jane Watson and Jonathan Storm as a couple had died along with the symbiote that night. He had stolen it, untested, from Reed's lab to give to her...

...he was the cause of all the destruction it had wreaked, that _she_ had wreaked while possessed by it...

Not even her membership in the Fantastic had healed that wound. Sue and Ben had been against it from the start, regarding her as a low-class encroacher, a showboater who talked the talk but couldn't walk the walk, a vigilante only good for street-level brawls with mid-level supervillains.

Finally she sighed, finally pausing the folding. "You know, _Peter Parker_ wouldn't betray me like this." Of course _he_wouldn't. Her angel, her inspiration, the one man who stuck by her side through the dangerous life of a superhero—at the cost of _his_ life...

Johnny seemed irked by the mention of his girlfriend's ex. "Yeah. And _he's_ dead. And I'm starting to believe the people who tell me that _your_ neglect killed him."

Her eyes narrowed at the all-too-familiar accusation. "You know I didn't kill Peter, Johnny."

But she closed her eyes, trying to escape from the darkness surrounding her.

The nightmares. They were coming back. Uninvited to flood her mind with smoke, just as they did for the months following Peter's death. Uninvited, not giving any mind to whether she was awake or asleep, whether she was at home or in a car, at her room in the Baxter Building or in the Fantastic's shuttle.

But this time, the ghost that haunted her wasn't that of Peter Parker. It was that of Dr. Otto Octavius.

She saw the fallen nuclear physicist as he was in life, she saw every detail—from the wild shock of curly chestnut hair, the large sunglasses, the trenchcoat swirling about him, the four robotic arms that sprouted out of his back and were wielded as thoughtlessly as the fists he was born with...

And in all the nightmares, he would tell her the same thing.

"_You were supposed to be the hero, Spider-Woman. You were supposed to defeat the mad scientist and save the day. _

"_But this time, the mad scientist defeated you. Even beyond the grave, the mad scientist defeated you."_

"_I didn't kill Peter, Octopus! You did! Admit you killed Peter!"_

"_Why? Why, when in the minds of the masses, perception is reality? The foolish _

_scribblings of tabloids are reality? In the minds of the masses, the perception is that you killed that meddling photographer, and so it becomes reality._

"_Your boyfriend died because of your thirst for celebrity, Spider-Woman," _Octavius would remind her. _"And no matter what you do, no matter how many times you save them—"_

"_That perception will haunt you forever."_

"MJ, are you there?" Johnny's voice seemed to come from the end of a very long tunnel. "Snap out of it!"

Mary Jane Watson, the Amazing Spider-Woman, arranged the last of the suits into the suitcase with a heavy sigh. "I'm leaving. I'm not going to be dumped so your sister and brother-in-law can play cosmic politics. Life's too short."

_late afternoon, watson residence_

Mary Jane threw the suitcase on the bed, and trudged downstairs to the kitchen. Her beloved Aunt Anna, herself the survivor of close scrapes with the Green Goblin and Venom, was baking cookies.

"Hi, Anna," MJ said.

Anna looked up from the bowl. She seemed more fatigued lately; dark circles ringed her eyes and her breathing seemed harder. "What's wrong, dear? Anything bothering you?"

For once today, MJ could smile. "I ought to be asking _you_."

"If I've told you once, I've told you..." Anna sighed. "Probably just the flu. I'm _fine_. Are you _sure _nothing's bothering you?"

"Nah, just getting dumped by my boyfriend for another chick, that's all. Nothing that a few of Anna Watson's chocolate chip cookies couldn't cure."

The ghost of Octavius whispered again in her mind—

"_You will never be free..."_

and MJ shook her head to clear it. She tried to focus on the matters at hand. "Can I lick the bowl?"

Anna took the mixer out, pushing the button to release the metal beaters. She handed one to her niece. "Knock yourself out—" she started—

—And then collapsed, Mary Jane's spidey-senses ringing in time to swiftly catch her before she hit the ground. She hurriedly checked for a pulse, finally finding one, as faint and unsteady as it was—

_Thank God._

But still his ghost smiled in her mind—

"_Get out of my head, Ock!"_

"_No matter! You cannot hurt me! You only manage to hurt your loved ones!"_

She pawed for her cell phone with shaking hands, dialing 911.

"_Think of the stress she suffers, Spider-Woman. Think of how she internalizes it, wondering and worrying, of not knowing the reason behind her niece's strange disappearances, behind the constant lies—"_

And like in all nightmares, the dreamer does not think to question why—she only does, only believes that the nightmare is as real as the waking world.

"_No! You can't say that! It can't be!"_

"_Oh? The pattern is unmistakable, my dear Spider-Woman. Your neglect killed Parker. Your irresponsibility killed Osborn. Your rashness killed Jameson and Stacy."_

And as she was lost in the nightmare, the paramedics lifted Anna onto a stretcher and loaded her into the ambulance, leaving her lost in her own dark thoughts...


	2. It's Not a Fashion Statement

Chapter 2: It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a Deathwish

"_I'm coming back from the dead and I'll take you home with me_

_I'm taking back the life you stole—_

_This hole you put me in wasn't deep enough_

_And I'm climbing out right now _

_You're running out of places to hide from me_

_When you go, just know that I will remember you._

_If living was the hardest part, we'll then one day be together—"_

My Chemical Romance, "It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a Fucking Deathwish"

_afternoon, phoebus general hospital_

Mary Jane hovered at her aunt's bedside as the doctor limped into the room, heavily leaning on his cane. "Dr. Blake!" she shouted at him. "What's wrong with her?"

Dr. Blake just sighed. "I'm sorry to tell you this, Mary Jane. Your aunt has been diagnosed with cancer."

"No!" Mary Jane cried. Things were _supposed_ to be status quo! She was _supposed_ to be enjoying herself, starting college! She was _supposed_ to live a halfway normal life! Not being haunted by the ghost of her dead archenemy and wondering how long her aunt was going to live!

"How—how long does she have?"

"Well, even though we caught it fairly early, it's still spreading very fast. I'm going to be honest with you—a month. Two at most."

Mary Jane put her head in her hands and sobbed, but she could hear Octavius' ruthless laughter...

"_You bring only sorrow and death to everyone you touch, Spider-Woman! Perhaps your loved ones would be better off if you would only extricate yourself from their lives!"_

But Dr. Blake's face softened. "Unless—"

Mary Jane looked at him, her eyes filled with blazing hunger and the need for a flash of hope, no matter how slight. "Unless _what_?"

Dr. Blake stroked his chin in thought. "I've been seeing studies on the internet lately about a new form of chemotherapy they're working on."

"Tell me more!"

"Well, ISO-36 is highly experimental of course. But if it works, it works by resetting the affected tissue at the genetic level. There are certain differences between a cancer cell and a normal cell. The medicine works by acting as a genetic filter...it basically resets the genes regulating tissue growth so the cancer cells turn normal."

"Where can I get it? I'll work two jobs, I'll do _anything_, Dr. Blake. Please, she's the only relative I really have left."

"They're reaching the stage for clinical trials now, I believe," said Blake, bending over his laptop. "There should be a shipment coming in from Cal Polytech. I'll email them, asking for first dibs on it. It sounds like it should work quite well on your aunt's type of cancer."

Mary Jane's face hardened. "Send the letter. I'll come up with the money."

"_I'll come up with the money somehow," she said, with absolutely no clue as to how to get that kind of money!_

Mary Jane shook her head. _Well, I have to maintain a halfway normal routine...might as well get to the college and arrange all of that crap._

_late afternoon, empire state college_

After the orientations and various introductions to college life, Mary Jane was relieved that out of all the crowds of freshmen at Empire State, there were at least two familiar figures. Liz Allan had run up to MJ, nearly smothering her in a hug. Grateful to see her old friend, MJ squeezed her back, then remembered that she had superhuman strength. But today, something seemed different. Flash Thompson was no longer the egotistic hotshot he once was. He stood straighter, his arm was bound in a sling, and he wore a military dress uniform. They were both accompanied by a tawny-skinned beauty in loose clothing, a long headscarf wrapped around her head.

"Owww!" Liz yelped. "You're gonna crack my ribs!"

When Liz recovered, she introduced—and reintroduced—Mary Jane to her friends with her usual boundless enthusiasm. "You remember Flash, don't you?"

"Come on!" Flash cut in. "Remember? Mad crush on Spider-Woman?"

"Oh yeah," Liz snapped. "You still Spider-Woman's Number One Fan?"

Flash just grinned. "And how! I'm wearing my Webheads t-shirt under my uniform! Now that I'm a civilian in college, I have a larger pool of fans to recruit! Hey, you wanna see my war wounds?"

Liz just sighed and rolled her eyes. Evidently, she had obliged many times before. "Wow. You went to Iraq, got yourself shot, and got shipped home on honorable discharge."

"You know Flash," Mary Jane added, "you really ought to change from that uniform. You're too pretty to have rotten tomatoes thrown at you. And being seen in that might, you know, hinder your Webheads recruiting efforts."

Flash shrugged. "Okay. Still, MJ, I'd like you to meet Sultaana. She comes from Baghdad and decided to come to America for her education."

Sultaana just blushed and nodded.

Liz gave her the stink-eye. "Hey Flash," she said, "Why don't you go show Sultaana the wonders of the American university? Give her the old grand tour?"

Flash saluted her, then slipped an arm around Sultaana's shoulders to lead her away. "I'll give it the old college try!"

"So," Liz said, turning to Mary Jane, "now that we're both single girls again—you could be my dorm roomie!"

MJ sighed. "I don't know. My aunt was just diagnosed with cancer, she's in the hospital..." _Not to mention the small matter of me being, what was it, a superhero with a secret identity?_

"Come on, it'll be fun. Look, if she's staying at Phoebus General, it's like five blocks away from the college. You could visit her anytime you wanted to! Just move in by next Monday! That'll give you the whole weekend to pack your stuff!"

"Well, okay," MJ agreed. _I'm going to need a friend during these times._

_Not to mention a job, and money..._

_morning, watson residence_

MJ hunched over her keyboard, surfing straight to craigslist. She opened her closet, stared at the harness. Stared at the very weapons that had killed her beloved.

_Well, the damned things are useful enough. Somebody's sure to pick them up. _

MJ thought it over. She probably should keep the arms. They'd helped her defeat Venom, after all. But she shook the thought out of her head.

_No, I can't keep them. They remind me of Peter every time I look at them._

_Not only that, I need the money. I need my aunt. _

Setting the price to three thousand dollars—an eminently reasonable price, she'd seen cars go on that website for less—she typed in her email address and her cellphone number for contact information.

_But even that won't be enough to pay my half of the rent as well as pay for the ISO-36. I mean, a dorm at Empire State's Stanley Lieber Memorial Wing isn't free room and board at the Baxter Building._

_Hell, that alien princess is probably sleeping in my room there now. _

_Time to get a job._

And suddenly, an idea so brilliant as to be worthy of the scheming mind of Octavius himself came to her.

_early evening, daily bugle headquarters_

"Coffee! _Where's my coffee?!_" MJ could hear the shouting of J. Jonah Jameson from across the room even without the benefit of spider-hearing. According to the office grapevine, Jameson's already less than amiable disposition had only been worsened by the tragic murder of his beloved only son, John.

Hoffman, Jameson's executive assistant—or better put, _gofer_— raced up expertly balancing a grande cup of Starbucks. "Your coffee, sir—decaf."

Meanwhile, she seemed to have caught the eye of a young reporter, tall and blonde. He extended his hand. "Ned Leeds. Pleased to meet ya."

She shook his hand. "Mary Jane Watson. I'm a photographer. Hopefully."

"You want to meet me for lunch sometime?"

"Well, it's only been two weeks since my ex dumped me for another chick, and..."

"Same here. I was dating Betty Brant from payroll—" he indicated her with his pencil— "but it never worked out."

MJ's smile brightened. "Still other fish in the sea, right?"

Jameson, well nourished with coffee, had finally taken notice of them. "Alright already! What is this, a speed-dating meeting? Leeds, out!" Turning to Mary Jane: "Who the hell are _you_ and what the hell are you doing here?"

"Well since you asked so _nicely_..." Mary Jane withdrew a portfolio out of her messenger bag. "Would you like some nice pictures of that menace Spider-Woman?"

Jameson nearly dropped his cigar, snatching the pictures from her. "These are pretty good. Haven't seen Spider-Woman photos this good since the late Parker."

"Does that mean—"

"As long as you have more of that where it came from, you have a job!" Jameson paused. "But I always wondered...how did Parker do it? And are you using the same technique?"

Mary Jane just smiled. "Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies."

But remembering, she sighed and added, "Parker was my friend. He taught me all I know."

_And I mean that in more ways than you'll ever know, Jameson. _

She walked out of the room, waving to Ned with a new confidence. "I'm Mary Jane Watson—and I'm _definitely_ a photographer."

_late evening, watson residence_

Mary Jane was packing the last of her belongings when she heard the knock on the door. She threw it open, to reveal a tall but heavy woman about her own age, dressed in a pink sweatsuit. Before the quirk of fate that threw a radioactive spider on her hand, Mary Jane would have been repulsed by her. But remembering her nerdy Peter Parker, she now always made it a point to look for the hidden beauty in others to lessen her pain at fighting her way through this dark and gritty world. Even though the figure was nothing to speak of, MJ thought, the lady had really pretty wavy golden hair, and her eyes resembled two priceless emeralds trapped in a dirty, cluttered box. In her case, the phrase, _"But you have such a pretty face" _ wouldn't be a lie. Mary Jane smiled and extended her hand. "Uh, hi, I'm Mary Jane Watson."

The heavy girl smiled and shook the proferred hand. "I'm Angelina Brancale. I'm here about your craigslist ad," she said.

_Whoa, I never got her email..._

_Then again, I haven't had the _chance _to check my email today..._

_And why in hell is my spidey-sense going off? This fat girl can't be any danger to me._

_It's the ghost of Octavius, fucking with my mind again, _she concluded.

"Oh! The arms! Well, they're right here in the cardboard box," Mary Jane replied. Unaware of Angelina's intense emerald eyes watching her as she wrote her check, Mary Jane picked the box up with one hand and tossed it in Angelina's general direction. "Might I ask—just for morbid curiousity, why you want them?"

Angelina merely smiled again, and offered the answer Mary Jane had earlier given to Jameson:

"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies!"


	3. The Way That I Am

Come on. Angelina, a figure very important to the story of Doctor Octopus, makes her Quirk of Fate AU debut, and Mary Jane moves into the _Stanley Lieber Memorial Wing_. Is it me, or are the Loyal Minions falling down on the job?

Never mind! Happy reading!

Chapter 3: The Way That I Am

"_All of this controversy circles me,_

_And it seems like the media immediately_

_Points a finger at me;_

_So I point one back at them,_

_But not the index or pinkie,_

_Or the ring or the thumb."_

Eminem, "The Way That I Am"

_morning, phoebus general hospital laboratory_

"I've got the money," Mary Jane Watson told a Dr. Blake very busy with the various equipment of a university teaching hospital laboratory. "Three thousand dollars enough?"

"More than enough," Blake reassured her, not looking up from the flask he held above a bunsen burner. He seemed most unsteady on his feet with his wooden cane currently abandoned on a counter.

"You need some help there, Dr. Blake?" she asked him. Thinking of Spider-Woman, she said, "I know some people. Superpowered people."

"Don't worry about it, Miss Watson," Blake said, still intent on whatever serum he was mixing up in there. "I have all the resources of Phoebus General, my trusted assistant Jane Foster, the registered nurse, and moreover, I'm no stranger to the superhero business myself."

"And the ISO-36?"

"Cal Polytech hasn't received my email. Nor am I able to get past voicemail."

_No need to take chances. Not with Aunt Anna..._

_afternoon, baxter building laboratory_

Dr. Reed Richards, team leader of the Fantastic Four, was most surprised to see former team member Spider-Woman hanging outside his window as he made repairs to the Fantastic's personal shuttle. "I must say, your visit is a surprise."

Spidey decided to cut to the chase. "Professor, I'm in a desperate situation. I need a brilliant scientist with a lot of influence in the intellectual world. Know any around here?"

Reed sighed. Out of the Four, he seemed to realize that their newest member had recieved a raw deal coming and going. "What can I do to help you?"

"I've got a—relative—with cancer. She doesn't have much longer unless you can get me something I've read about on the internet called ISO-36. And remember, you guys owe me."

"I've heard of it too. It's supposed to be in development at California Polytechnic Institute. I'll have a shipment sent to New York City."

"You're gonna want to have it shipped to Phoebus General Hospital, care of Dr. Donald Blake," she reminded him.

"Got it," Reed had already stretched his arm to the cell phone across the room. "And we don't exactly _owe_ you; your personality was a poor match for the Fantastic. That sense of entitlement you have is unhealthy."

She ignored him.

_afternoon, stanley lieber memorial dormitory_

Mary Jane Watson, had almost finished unpacking the last of her belongings when the _Family Guy_ rerun she'd been watching was interrupted by a news bulletin.

"_We bring you an urgent news report,"_ the news anchor announced. _"Several million dollars' worth of experimental technology, including the new virtual reality holographic program showcased in last night's Highlights in Science program, have been stolen from its storage vault in Massachusetts Institute of Technology."_

_Great,_ she sighed. _Just when I finally have time to relax, some crooks have to steal priceless equipment. _

But then she heard the anchor's next words, and her stomach dropped to her shoes. _"Security camera footage indicates that the vigilante, Spider-Woman, still connected to the death of her former publicist"_—here a photograph of Peter Parker was flashed on the screen—

"_Why do you still insist on this life?" Octavius' voice asked from the dark corners of her mind. "Why, when in the minds of metropolitan hoi polloi, you are no better than the 'supervillains' you fight?"_

It was all she could do this time to focus her concentration on the news program. _"—is the chief suspect. Here we go to live security camera footage—"_

Mary Jane's eyes jerked to the screen. A tall, buff woman with fiery red hair cropped short and wearing a red outfit trimmed with gold and wearing a full face mask, ripped the vault door away with one hand, easily lifting an odd machine full of wires and electrodes. The woman ran out of the room, stuffing it into the backseat of a nondescript sedan.

Then the scene switched to a reporter, interviewing J. Jonah Jameson. _"Mr. Jameson, as a longtime opponent of Spider-Woman and vigilantes like her, do you feel vindicated?"_

"_I can only feel relieved, Trisha," _Jameson said from the screen. _"Finally, Spider-Woman's true colors are revealed on tape."_

Mary Jane flushed with anger. _That's not me. That can't be me._

And still her old enemy's laughter rang in her head—

MJ swiftly strode to a large, locked wooden chest in her closet. Fumbling with the key as her hands shook with rage, she pulled out a blue and silver outfit, pulling the matching mask over her face, pulling on the matching leggings as her spidey-senses tingled.

_Liz is at the door!_ she knew. She pushed her bedroom door so that it was only cracked open. "Hey, Liz!"

Liz held a paper bag. "I got some Subway for dinner, MJ! You want some, I'll even give you the cookie."

"Uh...just a minute!" With a snap of spider-web, Mary Jane retrieved and dressed herself in a hoodie and jeans, pulling them over her spidey-suit. Then she slammed the chest shut and locked it. Stuffing her mask in a pocket and throwing open the door, she smiled and said, "Now...did I hear someone say giant Subway cookie?"

Liz's smile was now replaced by a singular expression of disgust. She turned around and stalked away. "I'm not going to wait until you lock everything up tighter than a drum before you even talk to me. If you're so scared that I'll steal something, just move out!"

"Aw come on Liz! It's not like that! You know better than that!" MJ shouted after her.

Liz just threw the Subway bag into the bedroom. "Yeah, but I'm not sure _you_ do!"

MJ opened the bag. Liz had taken the cookie. With a sigh, she threw the bag into the refrigerator and climbed out the window.

_early evening, near east river, pier 56_

Spider-Woman's senses rang just as she swung above a white sedan parked in front of a half-ruined pier. But suddenly, she recieved a swift kick in the small of her back.

She turned around to see the false Spider-Woman swinging on her own web with one hand, the other holding a clear capsule containing what Spidey recognized as the stolen virtual reality equipment. Under the full-face mask, the false Spider-Woman was probably smiling. "You would have been better off just sticking with the two bit crooks, Spidey," she said. "When you're up against the forces of the Master Planner, you're out of your league!"

Then the true Spidey's warning senses rang once more, and she turned around to see _another_ false Spider-Woman.

This one had long, fiery red hair, and a brown-toned outfit with a full-face mask and shining black eyepieces. But that wasn't even as unnerving as the four hairy brown multi-jointed legs sprouting out of her back. She was in short, more spider than woman! She dove towards Mary Jane, the true Spider-Woman.

MJ ducked, and leapt for a flying kick, but the spider lady just leapt out of way...fast. _Too_ fast. _She must also have some sort of spidey-sense, _MJ concluded. But the spider-lady was upon her, pinning her to the ground, raising her fist. And from her wrists, where MJ's web came out, there instead grew some kind of pointed barb—

From where she was pinned, MJ was nevertheless able to roll out of the way. The barb grazed her in the shoulder. Were it not for her spidey-sense and speed, the barb would have stabbed her in the stomach.

Still, enough venom had been released into her bloodstream that MJ collapsed on the pier, unconscious. And too late, she saw the normal looking false Spider-Woman diving into the drink, capsule in hand...

_late evening, pier 56_

Spider-Woman slowly regained consciousness, slowly sitting up. _If not for my spidey-strength, I'd be dead now at the hands of that—_thing_, whoever she, it, whatever is. _

Reminded of the battle at that moment, she looked around—to see that both of the false Spider-Women had disappeared without a trace.

Chagrined, she threw a web onto the nearest building and started back to her dorm room to finish off that Subway sandwich that should still be in the refrigerator and get plenty of sleep now that her dark nightmares had returned and supervillains were on the loose in New York City once more.

_morning, phoebus general hospital_

Mary Jane hovered over her aunt's bedside. Anna's eyes were closed with a sleep untroubled by the nightmares and worries her niece suffered through. "How is she, Dr. Blake?"

Dr. Blake heavily sank down into a nearby chair, holding Anna's chart in one hand and his wooden cane in the other. "Not any better, not any worse. I _do_ have some good news for you, though: I'm finally getting that shipment of ISO-36. Should be coming into New York within a half a week."

"Thank God," Mary Jane breathed.

"Is something else troubling you, Miss Watson?" Dr. Blake asked.

Mary Jane looked around to make sure that no one else was in earshot. "Well, I keep having nightmares," she admitted.

"What kind?"

"Well, it's not _my_ nightmare," Mary Jane backpedaled, "it's a friend's."

"Ah," Dr. Blake nodded, having undoubtedly heard this clever out before. "So, what does your 'friend' dream about?"

"Well—in the dream—" MJ started, "my friend is a superhero. And she became a superhero after her boyfriend was murdered by a mad scientist supervillain. The boyfriend's ghost came to her one day and told her to avenge him."

Blake nodded his head. "Like in _Hamlet_."

"Yeah. So the superhero flies out to the supervillain's secret lair, challenges him to a duel, and kills him in turn. She thought that killing the mad scientist would get rid of her boyfriend's ghost. But now even though the boyfriend's ghost is gone, the ghost of the mad scientist comes to her at night."

"Ah. And what does the mad scientist say to the superhero?"

"Well, he keeps taunting her. He keeps telling her that he was the one who really won, and that everyone knows that the superhero is really the one who killed her boyfriend because when she had a chance to stop it she didn't."

Blake stroked his chin. "Well, I'd say that you—"

"My _friend_—" Mary Jane corrected.

"Your _friend_ is trying to be a superhero to make everything right in her world but finds that she can't. And your friend gave in to the shadow side that each of us have, and finds out that she was becoming evil to fight evil. The dead supervillain's ghost," Blake said, "seems to be only a manifestation of her own guilt, because the superhero hasn't forgiven herself for either his death or her boyfriend's."

Mary Jane nodded.

"Remember," Blake concluded, "whoever fights monsters should take care not to become one."

_afternoon, daily bugle headquarters_

Mary Jane waited at Jameson's desk with her portfolio. "Did you get the pictures I emailed you?"

"Yeah. I suppose you're expecting money."

MJ smiled at him. "Well, kudos is nice but it won't pay the bills."

"I'm not buying them. So forget about the check."

"What! They were great pictures of three separate Spider-Women fighting!"

Jameson took out a cigar from a shirt pocket. "Yeah. Look, Miss Winston—"

"_Watson_—"

Jameson proceeded to light the cigar and puff it, ignoring Mary Jane's coughing and frantic efforts to wave the smoke away from her face. "Whatever! My livelihood depends on selling papers. And the people I sell papers to believe that Spider-Woman is a crook who pretends to fight crime to deflect attention away from her own criminal career. This clear so far?"

"As mud."

Jameson blew another puff of smoke. "And the public believes that Spider-Woman robbed that vault at MIT. The public doesn't want to read anything that disagrees with their own opinion. So if they see two separate Spider-Women together, it will challenge their opinion and they won't want to buy my papers! That means I'll lose money!"

MJ flushed. "So your job is reinforcing people's prejudices, not rendering objective journalism."

Jameson grinned, cigar clenched in teeth, and patted her on the back. "Smart girl. There's the door."

But instead of exiting the premises, she stopped by the desk of Ned Leeds. "I'm taking you up on your offer," she told him.

_late afternoon, the coffee bean _

Seated at a patio table under a wooden sign bearing the insignia, _"Abandon all hope, ye who enter,"_ Mary Jane and Ned silently share a latte. Ned seems entranced by her shining red hair. MJ is distracted by the distant wailing of police sirens and the faint tingling of her warning senses. Needing an excuse to extricate herself quickly, she stands up, doubling over.

"Sorry, Ned," she tells him. "My stomach." Being an actress, she runs to the bathroom clutching her stomach, fully intending to change into her Spider-Woman costume there. "Don't wait up for me!"

MJ does not consider the notion of telling him the truth. Anyone who learns her secret identity ends up dead sooner or later, she knew.

She also does not consider the notion that Ned, being a journalist, may already be putting two and two together.

_early evening, marchesa's bakery_

Two thieves prepare for a small, ordinary job. One thief unlocks the door of the bakery. Then grunts to his partner: "Take the money, but don't _eat_ nothing. My aunt owns this place."

Their grand plans, however, are interrupted by the sight of a tall, lean, costumed redhead dangling upside down on a spiderweb to greet them. "So guys—you'll break the bank, but you won't get caught in the cookie jar? Veritable Einsteins, the both of you!"

The thieves only replied with a blank look.

Spidey sighed. "It means you're both dumbasses."

To Spider-Woman, who has faced down a cyborg physicist, a super-strong maniac of a boyfriend, and a monstrous alien hybrid and lived to tell about it, subduing these thugs is child's play. And play with them she does.

She aims her web at two banana cream pies, quickly using them to blind the thieves. "It's old, it's corny," she says, hurling them to their faces, "but nothing beats a good old fashioned banana cream pie to the face!"

By the time the thieves could recover from that distraction, they were safely cocooned in a gift-wrapping of spider's web, and dangling from the nearest lamppost.

But when she returned to the Coffee Bean, there was only a folded note waiting for her underneath the latte cup.

_I know who you are..._

_evening, stanley lieber dormitory_

Mary Jane lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. _Is that what I've become? A monster? As evil as the supervillains I fight?_

_Would the people I live with be better off if I wasn't Spider-Woman? Is the price of my power, the demands of my responsibility, too heavy to bear?_

_Is Ock's ghost right when he tells me I'm still in it for the publicity, no matter what I tell myself? That like Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan, I regard being infamous as at least better than being ignoble?_

_Or am I just an idealist, a compulsive do-gooder?_

_Or am I more interested in the adventure of being Spider-Woman than I am of helping people?_


	4. Precious

As the Master Planner's evil plot steams further ahead, we've got more mysteries for Spidey to wrap her head around--and of course, further information is revealed about the clones and the QoF reality Angelina! Stay tuned; you won't want to miss a bit of this story, told in the grand Marvel manner!

Chapter 4: Precious

"_If God has a master plan_

_That only He understands_

_I hope that it's your eyes He's seeing through..."_

Depeche Mode, "Precious"

_night, watson residence_

Mary Jane Watson dreams...and in her dreams, the ghost of her first archenemy gloats over the bedside of her aunt, his snow-white suit spattered with blood, one tentacle still brandishing the body of her beloved Peter...

And in her dreams, she looks down to see his blood on taloned hands covered in black goo.

In Greek mythology, the prince Orestes was haunted by the Furies, the terrible snake-haired goddesses whose role was to torment those who murdered—especially those who murdered a parent, as Orestes had murdered his mother, Clytemnestra. The Furies cared not that Orestes had only avenged the death of his father, Agamemnon, murdered by his mother and her adulterous lover. Nor did they haunt the dreams of Clytemnestra herself.

A common device of the ancient Greek dramatists was called the _deus ex machina_— the god out of the machine. A device was rigged to the stage, and the god would literally descend upon the stage to judge and absolve the hero.

So it was that in the _Oresteia_, it was Athena, goddess of wisdom and war, who intervened to judge our hero, convening the first jury, casting the deciding vote to still his waking nightmares. The Furies' old role in the lives of mortals faded away, and they were thereafter called the _Eumenides. _The Kindly Ones.

But Mary Jane Watson was no Orestes. The monster that haunted and accused her was no Fury, and Athena was nowhere in sight...

_night, leeds residence_

Edward Leeds dreams...and in his dreams, his girlfriend Mary Jane smiles and whispers, "Can you keep a secret, Ned?"

She tells him, "You know me as Mary Jane Watson, mild-mannered drama major—"

With superhuman agility, she leaps onto the wall, climbing up until she reaches the ceiling. Sticking to the ceiling from her feet, she dangles upside down, tearing off her hoodie to reveal a familiar red and blue uniform...

"—but in some circles, they call me Spider-Woman!"

He only gasps with horror, muttering _"This explains everything..."_

_night, steven ditko memorial dormitory_

Benjamin Reilly dreams...and in his dreams, he laughs and talks with a graceful woman with fiery red hair as he reads a worn issue of _Scientific American_ and she sews together pieces of shimmering red and blue fabric...

_night, brancale residence_

Angelina Brancale dreams...and in her dreams, she is finally free from the pounds of flesh that had always imprisoned her inner stunner in that repulsive body she wore. In her dreams, she finally feels strong...strong enough to bench press a Buick, to bend steel in her bare hands.

In her dreams, she loves, and in her dreams, she is loved by the man she had secretly adored from afar. She clings to him, knowing she is the luckiest woman in the world to be loved by such a handsome, intelligent, witty, charming, and charismatic man as her beloved.

She is her beloved's, and her beloved is hers.

In her dreams, she gazes upon her beloved, not wanting to take a single second for granted. She cherishes his wild chestnut curls, his aquiline features, his large long-lashed brown eyes. She treasures the sight of his oversized sunglasses and every detail of the trenchcoat he wears. She memorizes every detail of the four robotic tentacle-like arms fused to her beloved, every electrode, from the harness to the three pincers at each end..

_morning, stanley lieber dormitory_

Mary Jane sat at her desk, plugging in her laptop. She didn't think it could hurt to do some investigating—to find out exactly who had just bought, in her opinion, the most dangerous machine this side of the atom bomb. She wondered if this lady was a shady character, working for a supervillain.

So, she sat at her desk, googling the name _Angelina Brancale_.

Quickly, she clicked the first link displayed on the search results and read the title of the website that listed Angelina Brancale as the webmaster.

"_Ottophiles Anonymous: The definitive online source for all matters Octavian."_

_Okay, _she thought, looking at the site map. _Pictures, news stories, the online newsletter and blog..._

Halfheartedly and not fully realizing the full import of the website's name, she clicked the link that led to the site's mission statement.

And loading onto MJ's monitor at broadband speed was a large, full-color photo of Doctor Otto Octavius himself in all his glory!

MJ gasped, nearly dropping her taco as she read the "mission statement" praising that six-armed killer as not only a great scientist who had been working for the benefit of all humanity, but an iconoclast, a victim of persecution by judgemental society for his refusal to conform to the establishment—and as Miss Brancale had put it, his "unusual appearance." Not only that, but Brancale was claiming that Spider-Woman's murder of him was part of a conspiracy by power companies and petroleum interests, because as a nuclear physicist, he represented a threat to their business.

On instinct, MJ reached for the mouse and clicked on the most recent journal entry. _"I've recently bought Otto's tentacle harness off a craigslist ad. I have every reason to believe it's genuine, and I have no clue why the owner was so desperate to sell it off. Will upload pics soon."_

Angelina Brancale's website, in short, was a shrine to Doctor Octopus. Angelina had bought the tentacles for her collection of Ottophilic memorabilia. Mary Jane shook her head. _What has this world come to, _she thought. _Every day I get called a criminal, a menace, a murderer, everything but a child of God. And then they have websites calling a_ real _criminal, a_ real _murderer, a great guy, a paragon of humanity who got a bad rap! Not to mention: what kind of girl in her right mind would love a_ villain_?_

One thought still nagged at her, even after all this time:

_Maybe they're right about me. After all, I never was able to remember what happened when I was possessed by the symbiote. _

_midmorning, empire state university_

Mary Jane Watson was never much good at science. Even though in high school she despised nerds, with the notable exception of Peter Parker, she now began to think her superhero career would be a bit easier if she was. It seemed like an unusual amount of her fellow superheroes were scientists, engineers, and inventors. She, who was a drama major and an aspiring actress when she wasn't a superhero, seemed to stick out like a straight guy on _Project Runway_.

So when she saw him in Biology, she thought she was daydreaming, that she had fallen asleep.

But he turned to face her, and Mary Jane attempted to pinch herself wake. Ensuring she wasn't asleep and only haunted by her dark hallucinations, her eyes widened, not daring to believe what she saw.

He swiftly moved to the chair next to hers, shily smiling. "Did I do anything wrong?"

She shook her head. "I just thought I recognized someone."

"By the look on your face, he must have been a ghost!"

"I guess you could call it that," she said.

"You know, when I first saw you, I did a double-take too," he said. "You looked like—a girl I once knew."

She laughed. "Maybe I _am_ a girl you once knew. When I was young and stupid—I was young and stupid!"

Benjamin Reilly does not love Mary Jane. But neither does he hate her. It was nothing personal, after all. Benjamin did not know why the Master Planner was so interested in this ordinary drama major. Nor did he care; the Master Planner never shared information with him. All he knew or cared to know was that the Master Planner wanted this girl watched very carefully, and that he was to extract certain vital information from her. He is only obeying years of programming that started before he was ever born, his _raison d'etre_: to unquestionably obey all orders the Master Planner may give him, no matter what they are. And as only expected, he will retrieve the information his master needs, as ordered to.

_afternoon, brancale residence_

Angelina Brancale, erstwhile video store clerk, steps back from her bed, holding up her digital camera and hardly believing her immense good fortune. "They're never going to believe _this_," she mutters. "I finally own them. These tentacles...he's touched them. He's _worn_ them."

The harness sits on her bed, tentacles limply arranged around the corset. Finally framing the picture just right for this momentous occasion, Angelina presses the button.

Steps back. Looks at the preview screen. Decides to delete the picture. Adjusts the lighting, zooms in, snaps another picture. Satisfied with the results, she plugs a cable into her computer's USB port and downloads the pictures onto her website.

But today, her hobby is interrupted by a knock at the door. Angelina shook her head. Nobody ever came to visit her. Not even salesmen, or Jehovah's Witnesses. She slowly walks to the door, opens it a crack, and barely manages being crushed by the door when the visitor throws it open with one hand, in a burst of superhuman strength.

Angelina recognizes the visitor from the news reports. The visitor has short red hair, dressed in a red uniform emblazoned with a golden spider and matching full face mask.

"Spider-Woman!" she breathed.

"I believe you currently have something not rightfully yours." From the front door of Angelina's apartment, the Spider-Woman can see the bedroom, with the famous tentacles still perched on the bed; the Spider-Woman points to the harness.

Angelina gasps. _She must have seen my website! She killed Otto—now she's after me! _

The Spider-Woman known as Jessie has nothing personal against Angelina. Angelina is, after all, only yet another nonentity in a city teeming with nonentities. Jessie did not know what the Master Planner wanted with Doctor Octopus' tentacles. Nor did she care. All she knew or cared to know that the Master Planner wanted them. She is only obeying years of programming, her chief imperative, her _raison d'etre_: to unquestionably obey the orders of the Master Planner. And as only expected, she will retrieve them, as ordered to.

With one spider-strong chop to the neck, Angelina falls, and finally gets her wish: to be with her beloved...

_evening, long island_

For twelve years, FedEx driver named Doug has followed the exact same delivery route through New York City. He has just started his shift, taking over a truck bearing precious cargo express-shipped all the way from California Polytechnical Institute to Phoebus General Hospital in Manhattan—and according to the workplace grapevine, on a special order from Reed Richards himself.

Bored with his seemingly endless routine, our friend Doug sometimes thinks that he'd do almost anything to relieve his boredom. Today though, he's going to realize that boredom has certain merits.

Today, a tall, lean spider-lady with fiery red hair spilling over a full brown mask has jumped on the roof of the truck from above, the force of the landing nearly caving the roof in. Doug swerves, startled and unused to such a distraction.

The roof is ripped away with the sharp barbs on the ends of four hairy brown legs that sprout out of the small of her back. As she forces her way in, the creature grabs Doug by the collar with one spider-strong fist, pulling a wrinkled paper out of a pocket on her brown spandex costume. "According to the timetable the Master Planner gave me, you're two minutes late!"

All Doug could say to this—thing—was: "Hey, I ran into traffic on the bridge! Now what are you gonna do with me?"

From behind her mask, she can see the repulsion and naked panic in his eyes. The Spider-Woman known as Charlotte has nothing personal against him; he is, after all, only another nonentity in a city full of nonentities, of the common sort that would be enslaved when her master ruled the world. Charlotte does not know exactly why the Master Planner wanted this very ordinary canister, or even what the canister contains. All she knows or cares to know is that the Master Planner wants it, and that the Master Planner has ordered her to retrieve it. Charlotte is only obeying years of programming, her purpose for treading this earth, her _raison d'etre_: to unquestionably carry out any orders the Master Planner may give her. And as only expected, she will retrieve the canister and bring it to the compound, as ordered to.

Charlotte rips her way into the cargo hold, tearing metal with bare hands as if it were mere paper. After shaking each box in turn and finding what the Master Planner had wanted, she simply snatches the box containing the canister.

Then, as Doug is simply a nonentity, she disposes of him.

_evening, phoebus general hospital_

Mary Jane rushes into the laboratory, bursting in on Dr. Blake watching the television bracketed above Anna's hospital bed. "Dr. Blake! They told me the shipment of ISO-36 was due to arrive about now—"

Blake interrupts her, pointing at the screen. "_Was_. The shipment was intercepted and stolen. They're playing the live footage now."

MJ gasped as the six-legged false Spider-Woman ripped apart the FedEx truck and hurled the driver into a nearby wall. She looked like she knew what she was after, too: she specifically picked out the box containing her aunt's last hope, and swung away from the scene on a strand of spiderweb.

Mary Jane's face hardened as she looked upon the crumpled, smoking ruins of what was once a perfectly good delivery truck. _That was total overkill. She did that just to display her power. Well, I'll show her power. She wouldn't know true power if it poked its head out of the grass and bit her in the ass. _

She swiftly stalked to the door, preparing to change again. Dr. Blake called after her.

"Where are you going, Miss Watson?"

"I'm going to get that canister back, Dr. Blake. No matter what it takes."

"But how do you plan to do that?"

_I'm wondering the same thing, Blake. And the only clue I have is the name of someone called The Master Planner..._


	5. Pushing Me Away

Finally, an update! In this thrilling installment, there's yet more on MJ's relationship with Ned, those evil spider-clones, and oh, yeah, the mysterious Master Planner of the Quirk of Fate alternate reality. So, stay tuned, you won't want to miss a bit!

To Song With No Soul: It _was_ a reasonably good guess, considering the information on hand. But since Otto's dead, Angelina can't become his girlfriend and certainly can't become the Stunner she does in the comics.

Happy reading and reviewing!

Chapter 5: Pushing Me Away

"_I've lied to you,_

_The same way that I always do_

_This is the last smile that I'll fake _

_For the sake of being with you—_

_Everything falls apart_

_Even the people who never frown_

_Eventually break down..."_

Linkin Park, "Pushing Me Away"

_evening, phoebus general hospital_

So concerned was Mary Jane with finding someplace to change into Spider-Woman that she nearly didn't notice Ned Leeds, running towards her. "Mary Jane!" he calls. "Mary Jane! Your roomie told me you would be here! What's wrong with your—"

Mary Jane has not the time, the patience, nor the willingness to get close to any man, considering her sorry record with the opposite sex. She merely pushed him out of the way, checking her strength, not wanting to injure him or God forbid, make him suspicious. "I can't talk to you right now, Ned," she told him. "I just got a call from Jameson, he heard the news and he wants pictures of Spider-Woman fighting some thugs! Bye!"

She raced past him, finally able to slip to a bathroom.

_evening, phoebus general hospital_

As he was shoved into a hospital wall by his new girlfriend, Ned fought the urge to shout at her, to give his dark thoughts voice.

_Why do you lie to me, Mary Jane?_

_I wasn't born yesterday, you know! You're not rushing out to take pictures of thugs, you're rushing out to fight them! Did you seriously think that I wouldn't figure it out? That I wouldn't notice you have the exact same hair as Spider-Woman? That I wouldn't notice your unnatural strength? That I wouldn't notice that you and Spider-Woman are never seen together? That I wouldn't stop to think about how you always got those pictures of Spider-Woman, knowing that the only photographer who came close in quality was Peter Parker, who called himself Spider-Woman's publicist?_

_Why can't you trust me? Why can't you tell me the truth?_

_And if you are Spider-Woman...is it true what they say in the Bugle? That you worked with a supervillain to kill your publicist when he wanted to back out? That you later killed that same supervillain when he threatened to expose you? Or was it that he wanted pleasure from you as well as business and you didn't like it? That you allowed the heir to OsCorp Industries to die after the Goblin took him hostage?_

_night, hell's kitchen_

Criminals were easy to find in the New York City area called, appropriately enough, Hell's Kitchen. To find a petty thug or ten, all you had to do was go to the nearest bar. Which Spidey did, encountering a dozen shiny motorcycles parked in the lot.

Spider-Woman reached up to the nearest stop sign, and plucked it away like an ordinary person would snap a toothpick. Then she proceeded to use it to smash the choppers, quickly and understandably attracting the notice of the Hell's Angels who owned them.

Even the biggest, toughest looking biker in the pack froze in his boots, knowing all about her reputation, even if his ability to read a copy of the _Daily Bugle_ was highly doubtful.

"Hey, that's our _bikes_! Shouldn't we stop her—" one biker started, but the leader held him back.

"Sure!" the leader replied. "Knock yourself out!"

The biker suddenly thought better of the idea, and stepped back into the rest of the pack.

"Okay, you scum, I'm through being Miss Nice Superhero!" she addressed the crowd. "You can do this the easy way—give me the answers I need—or I'm going apeshit on everything and everyone else in sight, just like I did to your motorcycles!"

"Okay okay!" the leader pleaded. "What do you want to know?"

Spidey's voice rang in the night, as she snatched the leader out of the crowd, grabbing him by the collar with one hand and lifting him over her head. "I want to know about the Master Planner!"

"Lady, we don't know _nothing_ about no Master Planner!"

Spidey saw the fear in his eyes, and knew he told the truth. She simply tossed him into the air, and using her stop sign as the old Louisville slugger, made his head the baseball before hurling the sign into the bar window and web-swinging away.

_night, peppermint rhino_

The Peppermint Rhino was New York City's most notorious dive, the accepted place of business for mafia, gangsters, hucksters, and assorted criminals of every stripe. The Peppermint Rhino was the reason why in every televised or cinematic crime drama, the cops are always compelled to visit a strip joint at some point in their investigation.

Tonight though, a most unusual visitor would make her entrance, ripping apart its front door with her bare hands. The one true Spider-Woman stalked in, and without a word wrenched one of the stripper's poles from its base and its attachment to the ceiling. Like a baton, she swung it, smashing the bar and the pool table in her fury.

At the point where Spidey had just demolished a perfectly good keg of beer and thousands of bottles of adult beverages fell to the floor and shattered with the crash of a hundred pounds of glass, one regular customer made the foolish mistake of wolf-whistling.

Spidey turned to the offender, webbing his mouth shut. "Cram it, will you!"

Still brandishing the pole, she shouted at the patrons. "I'm through treating punks like you with kid gloves! No more Miss Nice Superhero! I want information on the Master Planner, and I intend to get it!"

One of the braver regulars worked up the nerve to respond. "Come to think of it, Spider-Lady, I might have heard a few rumors here and there!"

She strode to his table, pole still in hand.

"What's it worth to you?" he asked her. "I mean, even a stoolie's gotta earn a living!"

She swung the pole, intentionally missing his head by a centimeter. "Kind of hard to earn what you can't do! _Capiche_?"

"Come on lady!" he whimpered. "We've all heard of the name, but we don't even know who the Master Planner is! No one's ever even seen his face! All we know is that those other Spider-chicks hopping around shaking people down are under her orders!"

_Hell, like I didn't know that already!_

"And check the waterfront! Those other crazy Spider-chicks always hang out down there!"

_night, the box_

Spider-Woman's rampage continued as she smashed her way into an underground brothel, known to cater to the seediest sort. She made her grand entrance by picking up a car and tossing it into the window.

Greeted by the screaming of those women who made a career in the world's oldest profession, Spidey had chosen to rip a parking meter free to use as her weapon.

"Spider-Woman!" one of the courtesans shouted. "What brings you here?"

Spidey brandished the parking meter. "I'm through being Miss Nice Superhero! I'm looking for information on a boss who calls himself the Master Planner!" To drive the point home, she swung the parking meter into the wall, nearly demolishing it.

"For one thing, it's a _she_."

_Finally, some answers! _"Who said that?"

The madam of the whole joint stepped up. "The Master Planner's the one trying to take over the whole crime business in New York, I've heard. Her superhuman underlings are starting to shake people down for their protection racket, getting them to hand over their profits."

Spidey's eyes narrowed underneath her mask. "And how do you know it's a she?"

The madam sighed, and related the story.

_two nights earlier, the box_

Madame Butterfly, owner and proprietor of the Box, found herself ganged up on by two tall, muscled women. Both wore full masks that covered everything but their lovely red hair. One held her hands behind her back, and (for Madame Butterfly had an eye for such details) wore a black spandex suit with white trim and a large white spider splashed across the chest. Her long red hair was swept away in a single shining braid that reached her narrow waist. The other administered some "gentle coaxing," her spiky short red hair complimented by a similar red and black suit.

"Julia, hold her still and I'll hit her again," Short-Haired Spider-Lady said, punching Butterfly in the stomach. They were fast, too fast, and inhumanly strong. Struggling in Julia's grip was useless.

"Mattie, hit harder," Julia suggested. Mattie took the suggestion.

"You're holding out on us, Butterfly," Mattie told her. "We told you that the Master Planner could be a powerful friend—or a dangerous enemy!"

"I don't work for no one!" Butterfly shouted. "I don't care if your Master Planner himself came in and—"

Mattie punched her again. "_She_ wouldn't go so easy on you, I'll tell you that."

Nothing personal after all, with the Spider-Women called Julia and Mattie. The old woman was, after all, only another nonentity. They did not know if the Master Planner would share any of the riches she stood to gain when she had the criminal underworld under her thrall. And really, they didn't care. They had no use for money. They didn't care that while they were shaking down two-bit thugs, worthless nonentities, they had coworkers busy with more exotic missions, and a spy at the Empire State College for whatever unknown reason. They had no use for prestige or glamour. Their money, their lifeblood, their purpose, their _raison d' etre_: obedience to every order the Master Planner might choose to give them.

_night, daily bugle headquarters_

While his girlfriend carried out her rampage against the criminal underworld, Ned Leeds watched live broadcast security camera footage of a Spider-Woman in a red and gold suit as she successfully stole from New York's IBM headquarters what was called the world's most sophisticated supercomputer yet developed.

_Is this the girl I know?_

_Or, Ned, is it just that you really don't know your girlfriend at all?_

_night, manhattan_

_Great,_ Mary Jane Watson, alias Spider-Woman thought as she swung from her spiderweb in an urban jungle as Tarzan from a vine. _We have a criminal mastermind who has God knows what plan up her sleeve. _

Resolutely, she swung towards the waterfront, knowing that the answers she sought were at the pier where it all started, where she was attacked by two imposters making off with computer equipment.

_night, phoebus general hospital_

Dr. Donald Blake waits in his laboratory, knowing that the experimental ISO-36 could lose its potency if it wasn't retrieved in the next forty-eight hours. He knows that if that happened, barring the intervention of God Himself, the thread of Anna Watson's life was soon to be cut. He hopes that that poor girl Mary Jane isn't in over her head in tracking it down.

_night, below pier 56_

The Master Planner waits in the laboratory of her underwater lair, hovering over the serum she was preparing to combine with the sample of ISO-36 obligingly provided by her loyal servants. She knew that meddling little bug, Spider-Woman, was onto her trail now, and she only hoped that her minions would not permit any—distractions—to get in the way of this highly delicate work.

_night, stanley lieber memorial dormitory_

Benjamin Reilly waits outside of the bedroom window of Mary Jane...until he hears her roommate Liz soundly asleep. His dreams confirmed his theory, and that of the Master Planner—that this Mary Jane Watson had reached some kind of mutual agreement, that she worked together with Spider-Woman. That could only be the reason why her _Daily Bugle _photos were so good. Spider-Woman was too fast to be properly photographed, except with her cooperation. And he knew something about photography. He just didn't know _how_ he knew. He was only a humble slave, after all, with one mission laid down by the Master Planner: to obtain Spider-Woman's secret identity, to discover who she was under that mask.

Finally, he hears Liz's snores, and he crawls through the window, a nerdy ninja in a black suit, making his way to the closet. He knows it's where he's certain to find some paperwork, a contract, _something_. After all, if they had some kind of business arrangement going, both parties had to trust each other, at least know each others' names.

His eyes alight upon a heavy oak chest, locked with a padlock. He withdraws a Swiss Army knife from his pocket, and diligently starts to jimmy away at the lock.

Liz stops snoring. Ben froze, and didn't allow himself to breathe again until she started snoring again.

Finally, after it seems like forever, the lock snaps open. Ben lifts the lid, trying to achieve a minimum amount of creaking.

_Well, looks like I just hit the jackpot_, he thinks. He gazes into the chest, filled with a multitude of shimmering spandex suits. _Spider-Woman costumes_!

His initial theories were all wrong. Spider-Woman wasn't merely _working_ with Mary Jane—Spider-Woman _was_ Mary Jane!

Carefully replacing everything he had moved and making sure to use his cell phone to get some prime pictures, he contacts his master through his bluetooth wireless headset. _"Master Planner, this is Ben," _he whispers. _"I've got the information. I'm heading back to headquarters."_

"_Well done, Ben. All of our plans are ready to be set into motion. I only have one small matter to resolve first."_

"_We'll all be rich."_

_night, below pier 56_

The Master Planner smiles in her underwater lair, but does not permit herself to become distracted by the more important work she does with her serums.

"_We'll all be rich,"_ Ben tells her through her bluetooth headset.

_You simple, simple fool. Only one of us will be _rich_, I assure you. You and the rest of them are only slaves. You would do well to remember your place._

_night, pier 56_

Spidey's warning senses rang so loudly that she thought her head was about to burst. This is where it all started, and this might be where it all ends. But funnily enough, when she stepped into the pier, there was nothing in sight but the rats.

_The water!_ she thought. _The whole thing could be underwater!_

Her spidey-senses now blared like a klaxon, nearly deafening and blinding her. She looked downward to the source of the alarm, and kicking a rat out of the way, found that she was standing on top of a trapdoor.

_early morning, the master planner's lair_

The Master Planner knew that Spider-Woman would someday come after them, finally ordering Mattie and Julia to guard the only entrance into the laboratory. The Master Planner always knew everything. That was why she was the Master Planner, of course.

And what do you know, the true Spider-Woman had just dropped into the main entrance tunnel!

Mattie's hand went to her headset, yelling the alert. _"Master Planner! Containment breach! Spider-Woman has just penetrated the main entrance!"_

"_What are you waiting for, Mattie? Perform your duties as my guard!"_

The false Spider-Women, Julia and Mattie, waste no time. They leap toward the true Spider-Woman, Mary Jane.

Mary Jane has no interest in fighting. Her only interest is racing ahead, finding the one substance that would save her aunt's life. Before she went the way of so many other loved ones. Anna had raised her as her own. She _couldn't _go the way of Peter Parker—

—of Harry Osborn—

—of John Jameson—

—of Gwen Stacy—

—even of Otto Octavius, all of them dead because of her failure to live up to her ideals, her failure to carry out her responsibility wisely.

But she must fight anyway, for even as she scrambles the walls, she is swiftly pursued by these imposters, swiftly running along the wall after her.

"Ha!" Mattie shouts at her, shooting a strand of spiderweb at her. "Did you think we dressed up like Spiders for _fun_?"

They carry on their hunt as foxes after a rabbit, flinging bolas made from balls and chains of spiderweb at her. They finally pile on top of her, and only Mary Jane's sheer determination, fueled by massive amounts of adrenaline, lets her throw the false Spider-Women off her, struggling out of their grasp.

The voice of the Master Planner can be heard on Julia's bluetooth. _"Must I do _everything_ myself? At any rate, I need you for another matter."_

The false Spider-Women fall back, but as Mary Jane races down the tunnel, Mattie does something which she never did, or even thought of doing before. She questioned her master, aloud.

"_But Master Planner, she's heading down the tunnel right to you..."_

_early morning, master planner's laboratory_

The Master Planner grabs the canister of ISO-36, placing it on a table in a most advantageous position, even below a spotlight.

_Spider-Woman is weak and sentimental,_ she knows. _She will attempt to retrieve this—the possible cure for cancer—first. And when her guard is down, I shall strike her down with my own powers._

Then the Master Planner stepped behind a corner, as Polonius did behind his curtain, to watch the show. She wasn't called the Master Planner for compliment's sake, you know. Each step in her plan was as carefully choreographed and written as any of Shakespeare's plays, with only real people as the players and New York as her stage.

_early morning, master planner's laboratory_

Spider-Woman crept along the ceiling, looking for anyone, anything that could clue her in to this mysterious Master Planner. _Okay, creepy underwater lair. Whoever the Master Planner is, she's been watching way too many James Bond movies._

Her spidey-senses started to tingle, and she peered down to what looked like the laboratory of the whole thing. _Okay, the Planner's your standard mad-scientist type._ Spidey remembered all too well her last encounters with your standard mad-scientist type. She didn't wish to repeat the experience.

With a fluid grace that rivaled any Olympic gymnast, Spidey tumbled off the ceiling, gently landing on her feet, intending to walk around, get the feel of the place, most importantly finding the canister of ISO-36 or finding someone she could properly beat its whereabouts out of.

But what she saw next made her stop in her tracks.

Laying on a lab table was a long, narrow glass tank, reminiscent of the incubators used to protect premature babies. This incubator was used for a similar purpose; tubes ran from an IV drip to the occupant of the tank, floating in some kind of clear fluid. A waste disposal system, Spidey noted, also came out of the tank, evidently draining out to the surrounding river.

_Holy shit,_ Spidey thought. _What the hell is that tank for?_ She peered closer into the incubator. _And who—or _what_—is in it? _

Spidey's warning senses rang, and she looked down to see that four silver pipes protruded out of the tank and dangled over the table, two on each side. _If I didn't know better, those things almost remind me of—_

Her eyes dropped to the floor to see that the hoses each terminated in three symmetrical pincers, now closed to a point. Then her eyes involuntarily jerked up to see the occupant of the tank: short and stocky with curly chestnut hair swirling around his face—

She gasped, feet dragging back against her will. "No—_no_—oh _no_..."

"H-he's dead, he's supposed to be _dead_..."

In her haste, she turned around, as she had just bumped into a table. The spotlight shining on the golden canister seemed the very light of Heaven. Overjoyed, she reached for the canister. _Finally! I can just grab this and—_

Spidey's head rang with the warning of her spidey-sense, so intensely that she thought her head might split in two. Behind her—though it seemed to Spidey far down a tunnel—a defiant voice rang. _The Master Planner! The whole thing was a set-up!_

"Guilty conscience, Spider-Woman?"


	6. Not My Time

At long last, the identity of the Quirk of Fate alternate reality Master Planner and the details of her evil plan is finally revealed! Hold onto your hats, you're not going to want to miss this! As always...whether old or new, read and review!

Chapter 6: Not My Time

"_There might be more than you believe_

_There might be more than you can see_

_But it's not my time_

_And I'm not going_

_There's a fear in me _

_But it's not showing_

_This could be the end of me _

_And everything I know_

_But I won't go down..."_

Three Doors Down, "It's Not My Time"

_early morning, master planner's laboratory_

From behind Mary Jane, known as Spider-Woman on occasion, a defiant voice rang. "Guilty conscience, Spider-Woman?"

With that, two too-familiar robotic tentacles snake out, grasping Mary Jane by the ankles. The other two type on the keyboard of a computerized control panel, manipulate an electron microscope, combine strange serums. In her fright, Spidey yells the first thing that comes to mind. "Doctor Octopus!"

But the tentacles now swirl around a woman. Tall and slender with a shock of curly hair dyed _purple_ for Chrissakes, she wears a green halter top, green leather pants, hiking boots, and a duster that flaps around her. "Well well! I should have known you would interfere!"

"I notice you're only using two of the tentacles to hold me, Master Planner!" Spidey says, not knowing anything better to say while two robotic arms wrest agony out of compressed and cracking ribs like pythons on their prey. "What the hell are you working on in that tank?"

"You wouldn't have the mind to understand it if I told you!" the Master Planner shouted. "Everything I've done I've done for my beloved! I was his loyal assistant, even before his transformation and even beyond his death! I was Doctor Carolyn Trainer, who graduated magna cum laude at MIT with dual degrees in biology and computer science!"

Fully grasping the implications of Carolyn's full-blast start of a decent supervillain monologue, and feeling the pain in her voice, Mary Jane's jaw dropped. "So, you're telling me—you had a crush on Otto Octavius? _Doctor Octopus_?"

"I served him in his experiments, wrote the artificial intelligence programs of the tentacles," Carolyn told her, possibly relieved that she finally had a listening ear, willingly or not. "I _loved_ him, I wanted our relationship to become..._more_. But oh no, he wanted that blonde _slut_, Mary Alice Anders, who did nothing but mock and scorn him! In fact, it was _her_ who first gave him the name of 'Doctor Octopus' to taunt him when he worked at OsCorp Energy!"

Mary Jane should have known it was unwise to do this while in the unbreakable grip of two adamantium tentacles controlled by a crazy chick with purple hair, but she laughed anyway. "Oh my _God_. Are you telling me that you turned into this maniacal supervillainess because you got rejected by a _fat old man _with _moobs_?"

The tentacles suddenly retracted, pulling Spidey close to her. Carolyn swiftly raised her hand and delivered a stinging slap to Mary Jane's face. "How _dare_ you! You of all people, who are not fit to lick the sole of his shoes!"

"Didn't keep me from killing him and ripping his tentacles off," Spidey replied sourly.

"Yes, but did you really think that with my talents, it would be beyond my capacity to _clone_ him?"

The full truth of the entire affair hit Mary Jane like another stinging bitch-slap to the face. "You mean all those Spider-Women, all those imposters stealing computer crap for you..."

Carolyn's back was turned to her, human hands and two tentacles still intent on the experiment she was running. "Yes, they are your clones. Test runs before I tried the process on Otto. With the rather...unfortunate exception of a clone whose spider-like genes turned on overdrive, resulting in some rather—uncomely mutations, they turned out to be perfect, loyal, powerful servants all.

"But when I finally thought myself ready to undergo the process on Otto's DNA, I ended up bumbling the growth accelerating process of gene surgery, mishandling the telomeres—the parts of chromosomes that determine cell division—aging in short. The original cells were already closer in age to his forty-five-year-old body than to any normal newborn. My Otto was aging at an abnormally fast rate, so I was forced to put him into stasis.

"And when I heard there was a formula being tested that could reset a cell's genetic code..."

"You're _sick_, Carolyn," Spider-Woman concluded.

"What is the meaning of _sick_, Spider-Woman? What is the meaning of _healthy_? The definition of healthy is that you fit in with society. If you dare to defy society's outmoded, petty laws and morality, you are considered sick. That is one thing Otto taught me. Among other valuable lessons."

"Is that why you had to steal all those computer servers and stuff too?"

"I didn't _steal_ the virtual reality equipment, Spider-Woman. I was merely taking back _my_ invention. And as for the server—I have downloaded a virus into every online banking center in America, at the same time investing the money my servants stole for me into more—concrete, as in _shiny_—forms of wealth. When the entire computer systems of the banking centers—the Dow, the Nasdaq, the Federal Reserve Board, _everything_—shut down, wiping out all records of stocks, bonds, dividends, and oh yeah, all the ubiquitous credit cards..."

Spidey still struggled in Carolyn's grasp, prompting the tentacles to squeeze an already tired Spidey harder. But she could still remember her basic economics. "The whole paper economy goes to hell, and the value of the gold or whatever you're hoarding skyrockets! You'll cause another Great Depression!"

"Right. Why take over the world the hard way when you can just _buy_ it?" Carolyn nodded, still working on the serum while Spidey looked at it, reminded of Dr. Blake, surely doing the same thing over at Phoebus General and wondering where Mary Jane Watson might be. Carolyn was now one step closer to achieving her wish as she rigged up an IV line and started to fill a bag with the serum. All she needed to do was add the ISO-36 and Doctor Octopus would live again.

Spider-Woman frantically thought of a way to get out of that death-grip Carolyn had on her. With Herculean effort and agility, she wriggled her arm free. Webbing an unused bunsen burner, she began to swing it above her head. "Okay, Trainer! Either give me the canister or I'll hurl this right into your precious clone tank! Choose: the medicine or your beloved!"

The web swung down, and Carolyn turned away to face her, striking at her with all four tentacles now. One caught hold of the bunsen burner. "No! You _monster_!"

She dove on Spider-Woman, tentacles madly transporting Carolyn, chasing her after Spider-Woman. "Give me that isotope, Spider-Woman!" The tentacles slammed Spidey into the ground, pinning her down. But Spidey managed to fling a slender string of spider-web to a few lead crucibles sitting on a shelf above, swiftly flinging them towards Carolyn's head—where'd they'd _definitely_ leave a mark.

To save herself by swatting away the projectiles, Carolyn would have had to duck and disengage one of the tentacles, allowing Spidey just enough opening to free herself.

But that wasn't how it would work this time. Carolyn didn't even seem to notice. Instead, two feet above her head, the crucibles simply bounced with a _clank_ above her head.

_Force field! _Spidey's intuition screamed. _Carolyn's a...mutant?_

"You didn't think I could fall for a cheap trick such as that, did you? No, even _you_, you senseless little arachnid, could predict that I'd make some improvements on my dear mentor with the help of modern technology." With her human hand, she tapped her head.

Spidey pushed uselessly at the tentacle that pinned her to the ground by the throat as she desperately reached for the canister, clinging to it with the same power she used to climb walls. She was already near exhaustion from the exertion of fighting three supervillain-types in a row, but robots never tire. "Cyborg..."

"The nanochips amplify the latent, natural psi abilities of the human brain," she said. "Not to mention allowing me to interact with the global internet, allowing me to download anything I want straight into my head..."

"Look, Master Planner, Doctor Octopus, _Lady_ Octopus, Dr. Trainer, whatever you want to call yourself," Spidey interrupted, having grown more than a little tired of the incessant boasting, "are you planning to beat me by _talking_ me to death?"

"No, I'm _planning_ to beat you by slowly strangling you until you surrender the canister—"

Spidey thought she heard something crack as the tentacle squeezed harder around her neck. Her grip on the precious canister slowly began to loosen...

_early morning, phoebus general hospital_

The doctors keeping watch over Anna Watson know that the end is near. They know the only reason she's still alive now is because of her iron will to live. They know that without the ISO-36, or possibly even with it, there's nothing they can do now except give her medication for the pain and keep her comfortable until...well, the end.

One of the nurses calls a priest...

_early morning, master planner's lair_

At that point, she could hear the trapdoor open, and a short, slender boy in black jump down into the laboratory. "Master Planner, I have the information you requested!"

Carolyn's teeth gritted. "Can you not see I am otherwise _occupied_ at this moment?"

Ben's eyes widened. "But you wanted to know her secret identity! Her real name is—"

At that moment in time, Spider-Woman suddenly realized in retrospect the reason why Ben seemed so much like Peter Parker. She let out a strangled cry. "No, don't, Pete!"

The effect on Ben was exactly as she had intended. He froze in his tracks, mouth hanging open. Carolyn's attentions were now on him.

"I knew that Spider-Woman had a publicist and photographer by the name of Peter Parker, and that she was even implicated in his murder, but I—I never expected the full extent of that relationship!"

Then Carolyn turned on Ben, swiftly unpinning Spider-Woman, swiftly coiling a tentacle around Ben. She triumphantly brandished the clone in front of Spidey. "Sentimental, romantic, _weak_ fool! Are you willing to risk your first boyfriend for a chemical formula you have no use for at any rate?"

And Spidey was transported back to mere high school sophomore year, and the tableau changed to that day in First Central Bank, and she hears Octavius laughing at her as he brandished his hostage like a trophy, knowing she was helpless to save her beloved Peter...

_No! I won't let it happen—_

Spidey leaps once more, raising the hand holding the canister—

_I won't let it happen again!_

Spidey squirts a thin film of spiderweb to Carolyn's face, and the goo spreads over her sunglasses—

_So many times I relived that moment in my head, thinking, asking myself how I could have done it differently...replaying it every day and night for months on end..._

_...asking God Almighty for one chance, just one chance to go back and do it right..._

_I won't fail this time! He's all I have of Peter...I won't fail him..._

And Mary Jane Watson, the Amazing Spider-Woman, finds herself screaming her vow to her first love. "I—won't—fail him—again!"

With that, she brings down the canister on the blinded Carolyn's head, breaking her mental hold over the tentacles, and the silvery spiral unwinds, the coils loosening around Ben, instead flinging him into a wall...

Carolyn recovers, instead slamming Spidey against a control panel, making Spidey loose her hold on the canister, smashing her way through the laboratory in blind pursuit of her enemy as her human hands feel around for her shades.

The blinded computer scientist does not realize that lashing out wildly, the adamantium tentacles have knocked down several of the solid iron support beams, essential to the design of the underwater structure.

She might be happy if she could only see that the beams had fallen directly on top of Spider-Woman, pinning her to the ground facedown. But by the time she finally pulls the useless sunglasses off, she can only curse the fact that she was born nearsighted. Prepared for all contingencies, she races out of the laboratory toward her sleeping quarters, where she's certain that she has a pair of contact lenses stashed somewhere, leaving her enemy to her certain death.

But the tentacles still flail wildly, and Carolyn hears glass cracking, and fluid leaking, then pouring to the ground. She races back to the tank. "No! Not Otto—" and as the clone crashes to the laboratory floor, she faints in his lifeless arms, pressing her alabaster cheek against soft olive skin...

_early morning, phoebus general hospital laboratory_

Dr. Donald Blake begins to despair that the formula will arrive in time, and despairs for the life of poor Mary Jane. She tried her best, but she had undoubtedly run afoul of whatever sinister criminal who had stolen it. He doesn't want to give up on her, but nevertheless fears he may have no choice...

_early morning, master planner's laboratory_

Spider-Woman lays on her stomach, pinned to the ground by three solid iron beams and another five tons of assorted debris. But that isn't quite the chief cause of her distress. For Spider-Woman can see it, her aunt's last hope, the canister containing the experimental ISO-36, a bare five feet in front of her. Nothing else matters now. Not even Carolyn. Not even the clones. Not even Benjamin, if he even _was_ Peter Parker's clone.

All that matters now is out of her reach—possibly forever.

Because even the Amazing Spider-Woman is not invincible, or omnipotent. She is at the end of her strength now, pushed beyond the limits of her endurance. She tries to reach for the canister, stretching as far as it could go, and finally her arm drops limply against the floor.

_I've failed. Just when it counted the most—I failed. _

_I've failed Anna—just like I failed Peter._

_early morning, the master planner's headquarters_

Outside the door of the laboratory, the Spider-Woman clones called Julia, Mattie, Charlotte, and Jessie wait.

Jessie stares at the servers and the laptop, holding up a flashdrive. "Should I upload the virus now?"

Charlotte snatches the flashdrive away, four spider legs clicking. "No, you idiot! We do _nothing_ except on the Master Planner's orders!"

"But if it's what Carolyn wanted to do anyway—"

"Come on, you _know_ what happens when you call her Carolyn. _Nobody_ calls her Carolyn—"

Mattie taps her foot, arms crossed. "You figure the Master Planner finished her off?"

Julia merely yawns. "Even if she got away, she'll have to go through _us_ to get out."

_morning, the master planner's laboratory_

Mary Jane Watson waits, pinned to the ground by piles of metal, intently watching drops of water sprinkle to the ground. Steadily, the drops become bigger, fall faster as the leak in the Master Planner's headquarters steadily grows bigger. _Is my story fated to end like this?_

_morning, the coffee bean_

Flash Thompson waits at the newsstand, searching for recent news about Spider-Woman, wondering why his heroine has gone missing...

_morning, stanley lieber memorial dormitory_

Liz Allen waits by her television, cell phone in hand, searching for recent news about Mary Jane, wondering why her roommate has gone missing...

_morning, daily bugle headquarters_

Ned Leeds waits by his desk and wonders as well why his girlfriend has gone missing...

_morning, phoebus general hospital_

Donald Blake waits in his laboratory, and Anna Watson still waits in her bed...

_morning, master planner's headquarters_

_Is this where my story ends?_ Mary Jane Watson asks herself. _No, I'm supposed to have the happy ending! I'm supposed to save the day! I'm supposed to be the hero! _

And on this occasion of all places, his voice rings through her head. _Then start acting like it! Any idiot can win a fight when the odds are easy! It's when there seems to be no chance at all—that's when it counts..._

And with a sigh, she admits it. _You're right. This time, you're right, Octavius. I was given great power that day—and burdened with a great responsibility. Within my body is the strength of many men..._

_And now, I have to call on every single bit of it!_

_Now, I either prove myself equal to the task—_

_  
Or I prove that I'm not worthy of that strength!_

Mary Jane shakes, raising herself on her hands, straightening her arms.

_A hero can lose! A hero can be defeated! It's no disgrace, it's no shame—as long as you never give up! A hero, at least, never gives up!_

_And if I choose to give up now—with my aunt's life at stake—_

Mary Jane slowly draws her knees under her, arches her back.

—_I don't deserve these powers! I don't deserve the name of Spider-Woman!_

Mary Jane lifts her numb arms, grasping the underside of the largest iron beam, falters as the dripping water makes it slippery. The water is trickling in, not dripping now. Carolyn still dreams of her beloved in her unconsciousness, the clone she holds still and unbreathing. She sees Benjamin slumped against a wall, and remembers everything.

_I failed Peter..._

And she sets her feet flat and flexed on the ground, and starts to push.

_I failed Harry..._

She pushes, only sheer willpower preventing her from fainting from exhaustion. The trickle of water becomes a stream.

_I failed John..._

She's never lifted this much in one go. The whole pile must weigh ten tons. Her grip is faltering, she's now standing in six inches of water.

_I failed Gwen, I failed Ben..._

Probably no more than five, she was exhausted even before she ended up beneath it. The crack in the ceiling grows wider.

_I won't fail Anna!_

And with a sudden effort, her powerful legs straighten, her spine straightens, her arms straighten, and the beam falls free.

Lost in a fog, she forces herself to walk, forcing herself to lift one foot and put it in front of the other. She bends down with effort, picking up the canister, cradling it and stumbling out the door.

She barely hears the voices of the clones. "Here she comes! Jump her, she can't fight us _all_ off!"

Her spider-sense rings through the echo chambers of her brain. She needs to rest. She can't fight these stupid clones right now. Clinging to the canister with her barbed fingertips, she decides to lull them into letting their guards down, let them pound on her for a bit.

_Whoever took a rest by taking a beating? Then again, I haven't been a conformist since that field trip. _

"Maybe we overestimated her a bit—"

"Actually, I think that what you did was _under_estimate me." With her superhuman endurance, Mary Jane has recovered enough after these few minutes—just enough to stand to her feet in twelve full inches of water besides, and fight. "I've been a lot of things in my life! I may be a wannabe celebrity! I may be a showboater! I may be a narcissistic glory hog! Hell, I may even be a murderer! But you know what? I'm _not_ a quitter!"

"Not anymore!" She barely notices in her mental fog the slosh of the water as she kicks. She barely notices where her fists land. She barely notices the splash the clones make as they fall. In fact, she barely notices as she stumbles along the tunnel, looking for the trapdoor and the ladder, that everything is still. Her opponents are all down for the count.

"It—it's over," she said. "It's over."

Mary Jane was wrong. At that instant, the streams became a flood, a downpour, a torrent, as something in the Master Planner's headquarters irrevocably _gave_.

Pushed far beyond her limits, something in Mary Jane gave too. She no longer has the strength to swim. All she can do now, is hug the canister close and float, trusting the tide to carry her out to safety...


	7. Epilogue: If This Be My Destiny!

We must bid goodbye to our friend Mary Jane Watson, the Amazing Spider-Woman now...until the next thrilling story!

As always, read and review!

Chapter 7: Epilogue: If This Be My Destiny

"_I see you lying next to me_

_With words I thought I'd never speak,_

_Awake and unafraid, asleep or dead..._

_I am not afraid to keep on living,_

_I am not afraid to walk this world alone._

_Honey, if you stay I'll be forgiven,_

_Nothing you can say could stop me going home."_

My Chemical Romance, "Famous Last Words"

_midmorning, phoebus general hospital_

Spider-Woman, still clutching the canister, has no time to change. She never thinks about changing, never notices that she is soaked down to the bone and she is splashing water all over the hospital. She stumbles into Phoebus General Hospital and hails a nurse.

"Miss Foster," she recognizes. "Get this to Dr. Donald Blake. _Now_."

Jane Foster merely nods. "Isn't this for Anna Watson? How do you know—"

"Ask me no questions and I tell you no lies."

"What's with your breathing? Is there anything wrong?" Jane asks. "Did you run into trouble?"

Spidey shakes her head and repeats her answer. "Ask me no questions and I tell you no lies. How long will it be before we know?"

"About two hours," Jane informs her. "We have to run some tests to see how much the serum worked."

"Splendid. I'll be back then."

"Wait!" Jane cries. "Why are _you_ so interested in this matter?"

"You know what my answer will be, Nurse."

"Right. 'Ask me no questions and I tell you no lies,'" Jane sighs.

_midmorning, pier 56_

Finally having had the chance to change into some clean dry clothes, Mary Jane stands beside her boyfriend, Ned Leeds, snapping away with her digital camera.

"Divers pulled up a body," Ned tells her. "They say it was Doctor Octopus himself. God knows how _that_ happened, especially since he was supposed to be murdered last summer, but they're saying he was probably the mastermind of the whole thing. Wouldn't put it past him."

"What do I know?" she sighs. "I'm only a photographer."

But she remembers, and wonders. Did Carolyn, that tragic genius, that criminal mastermind, get out alive? Did the clones? Did Benjamin?

Her thoughts are interrupted by the words of her concerned boyfriend.

"What the hell's with your _face_?" Ned asks, for Mary Jane's beautiful face is now marred with two black eyes and several bumps and bruises.

She only shrugs. "Got roughed up a bit. Occupational hazard."

"But _who_—"

"Trade secret. Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies!"

_midmorning, daily bugle headquarters_

J. Jonah Jameson bends over his phone. "Who? Did you say Spider-Woman? You want me to meet you there?"

He nearly drops the phone in his excitement. "An _extra_, Leeds? The Master Planner's gang captured! The identity of the leader revealed? The body of Doctor Octopus found by police divers—and _my_ paper has the story first!"

Betty Brant, _Daily Bugle _bookkeeper, seems concerned. "Chief? You're _smiling_! Is there anything wrong?"

"I'm not smiling! That's _gas_!"

_midmorning, phoebus general hospital_

Mary Jane knows that just as she failed Peter, she failed Benjamin. It does not matter to her that Benjamin was not _really_ Peter, that he was only a clone. God had answered her prayers, given her a second chance to get it right, to atone for her role in Peter's death...and she totally _blew_ it.

But she knew that she didn't fail Anna—and no matter what happened, she could go to her (probably early) grave knowing that she did her best. And isn't that all you could ask?

She tiptoes into Anna's hospital room, to find her aunt once more sitting up and in good spirits, busily working on her knitting. "Aunt Anna!"

Jane Foster, registered nurse, beams as well. "You'll be happy to know, Mary Jane, that the tumors are shrinking. She should be discharged tomorrow."

"Long term prospects?" Mary Jane asks.

"Cancer should go into remission."

Anna and Mary Jane embrace, sobbing their relief.

_midmorning, coffee bean_

Ned Leeds finally works up the courage to tell her what he knows. "Mary Jane...you don't have to lie to me anymore. I know everything."

She does not deny any of it. She simply looks him square in the eye. "Then you know why we can't be together." Her face is still heavily bruised, and her sprained arm is in a sling. "I was given a blessing and a curse. I was given great strength and a great burden to shoulder with it. With this great power, I also have a great responsibility to use it wisely. So I'm _not_ giving it up.

"The world cannot exist without balance, Ned. There must be both angels and demons, both good and evil. Spider-Woman will always have enemies, Ned. As long as there is a Spider-Woman, there will always be someone like Doctor Octopus. As long as we're a couple, you will be in danger from every supervillain who wants to fuck with my head.

"As long as you date me, our relationship will be filled with lies and secrets. You will always be forced to explain away my absences, to collude in my deceptions. Every night, you will always wonder whether I'll even come home alive, and you'll be helpless to do anything about it.

"And every guy who gets involved with me ends up dead sooner or later. I never caused their deaths, not directly. But my secret life put them in danger. I will not let you become the latest on that list. Do you understand?"

Ned shakes his head. "Mary Jane, I have the power of rejection, I have the power of choice now. I _won't _let you make my decisions for me. I know I will be in danger. I accept that of my own free will. I will walk into that danger with my eyes wide open. I just want to stay and face those dangers _with_ you."

"But _why_? Why, when you know what you do, what _I _do?"

"Because even a superhero needs to be saved sometimes. Especially from herself."

_afternoon, stanley lieber memorial dormitory_

"Mary Jane!" Flash calls, peeking his head in the door. "We were all—well, Liz and I anyway—we were wondering where you'd gone off to!"

Mary Jane didn't bother to look up from her textbooks. She had a _lot_ of studying to do, especially with her long absence. Now that the more pressing matters had been dealt with, she could finally concentrate on her studies.

Liz waves her wallet. "Burger run! You in?"

"Nah," Mary Jane says. "I've got to actually _study_ for once."

"Come on. Please?" Liz pleads. "We're doing movie night. Rented some old movie with Sally Field as this lady who marries some Middle Eastern guy, and he beats the crap out of her, and—"

"Maybe later."

"I'll bring you home a chocolate Oreo milkshake," Liz tells her.

"Much appreciated."

"What the hell happened to your face?" Flash inquires, concerned.

Mary Jane smiles. "I was swinging around town in Spider-spandex, getting the crap beat out of me by the metal arms of a supervillainous cyborg scientist."

Liz shrugs. "Well, you ask a stupid question..."

Flash starts laughing. "_Ha_! That's rich! You know what I like about you, MJ? You've got a sense of humor!" With that, he bounces out the door, arm in arm with Liz.

For once, things actually seem to have a happy ending for her. Shutting the door, Mary Jane finally feels free to laugh too.

**Finis

* * *

**

A virtual no-prize to the reviewer who finds the in-joke. After all, a Master Planner prose masterpiece is sorely incomplete without the requisite in-joke. Coming up later: Quirk of Fate Part 5: The Master Planner Returns! Featuring strange love triangles, the introduction and rebooting of two more characters, both Empire State faculty turned bad, the return of our fiendishly frenetic Lady Octopus, and a little piece of technology they call the Nullifier! Also, I'm still working on the bugs in "The Unauthorized Autobiography of Otto Octavius," the story of the rise and fall of the newest original character denizen to join the ranks along with Austin Smith, Octavia Jones, and Jordan Nicholas in the MPU (The Marvel Universe according to the Master Planner). Well, until the next thrilling story, that's all folks!


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